Palin declares readiness for job in TV interview
Last Updated: Thursday, September 11, 2008 | 8:48 PM ET
The Associated Press
Sarah Palin proposed NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, which risks putting the U.S. in conflict with Russia, and declared her readiness for high office Thursday as she took a cautious step out of the protective bubble she has been in since joining John McCain's ticket.
Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin during an interview with ABC News on Thursday. (CBC) "You can't blink," said the first-term Alaska governor, asserting in an ABC News interview that she is prepared to be vice-president and take on the weight of the presidency should it ever come to that.
It was her first extended interview and followed days of preparation by McCain's campaign for the foreign policy neophyte, who was scarcely known outside her state and political circles until McCain selected her.
Now a figure of intense national interest who has helped McCain pull even or ahead of Democrat Barack Obama in polls, the 44-year-old Palin has been limited to stages and stump speeches, with little spontaneous interaction with voters — a star on camera who has appeared sheltered from questioning.
Her interview with ABC's Charles Gibson is the only one scheduled for her to date.
"We will not repeat a Cold War," she said. But she said she favoured including Georgia and Ukraine, former Soviet republics, in NATO despite opposition by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Asked whether the United States would have to go to war with Russia if it invaded Georgia, and the tiny country was part of NATO, Palin said: "Perhaps so."
"I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help," she said.
McCain also has talked a tough line in defence of Georgia, while speaking of a role for NATO in less explicit terms. He said last month that NATO should "begin anew the discussions about a membership track for both Georgia and Ukraine."
Palin said she didn't hesitate when McCain asked her to be his running mate.
"I answered him 'yes' because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can't blink," she said.
"So I didn't blink then even when asked to run as his running mate."
In the interview, Palin said she has never met a foreign head of state.
Palin had not done interviews since the first and only one she gave to People magazine on the day McCain introduced her as his vice-presidential choice.
McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said earlier this week that Palin will do more interviews "when we think it's time and when she feels comfortable doing it," and asserted: "She's not scared to answer questions."
In the ABC interview, Palin was asked about a comment she made in her former church that "our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God" and whether she thought the United States was fighting a holy war in Iraq.
Palin said "I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words."
And she said she did not know whether her Iraq-bound son, Track, was on a mission from God. His army brigade is heading to northern Iraq at the end of the month for a yearlong assignment.
"What I know is that my son has made a decision," she said.
"I am so proud of his independent and strong decision he has made, what he decided to do and serving for the right reasons and serving something greater than himself and not choosing a real easy path where he could be more comfortable and certainly safer."
Palin arrived in Alaska on Wednesday to a warm homecoming from a crowd of more than 2,000. It was her first stop without McCain.
She's expected to rejoin him next week and spend much of the fall campaign at his side, even as Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden campaigns independently of his running mate Barack Obama.
